Ryde council election, 2024

Ryde council covers the inner north-west of Sydney, covering suburbs at the western end of the lower north shore on the north side of the Parramatta River. The council covers the suburbs of Ryde, Meadowbank, West Ryde, Denistone, Melrose Park, Eastwood, Marsfield, Macquarie Park, North Ryde and parts of Gladesville.

The council has a population of about 131,000 as of 2022.

• Wards
• Redistribution
• Incumbent councillors
• History
• Council control
• Candidate summary
• Assessment
• 2021 results
• Vote breakdown by ward
• Results maps

Wards
The City of Ryde is divided into three wards, with each ward electing four councillors.

East ward covers Putney, Gladesville, North Ryde and East Ryde.

Central ward covers Ryde, Meadowbank and parts of West Ryde and Macquarie Park.

West ward covers the remainder of West Ryde and Macquarie Park, as well as Eastwood, Denistone, Melrose Park and Marsfield.

Redistribution
A small change was made to the Central-West boundary. The West Ward expanded to the eastern side of Herring Road near Macquarie Park.

East Ward was untouched.

Incumbent councillors

¹Justin Li was elected at a by-election on 15 October 2022 after the resignation of Labor councillor Jerome Laxale.

History
Ryde is an area which has tended to lean towards the Liberal Party, but much less so than other parts of the north shore. Despite this trend, the Liberal Party only began running official candidates in 2008.

Prior to the 2004 election, the mayoralty had been shared around amongst an independent grouping, with Edna Wilde and Ivan Petch each serving two terms as mayor from 1999 until March 2004.

At the 2004 election, Labor won three seats alongside two Greens. The remaining seven seats went to independents, including at least one who later won a seat as a Liberal.

Independent Terry Perram served as mayor from 2004 to 2005, followed by Ivan Petch from 2005 until 2008.

The Liberal Party made its first official push for Ryde council in 2008, winning four seats. Labor also won four seats, with the Greens winning no seats on the council. The remaining four were held by independents.

The mayoralty was shared between the major parties, with Liberal Vic Tagg serving as mayor from 2008 until 2009, followed by Labor’s Michael Butterworth until 2010, and then Liberal councillor Artin Etmekdjian from 2010 until 2012.

The Liberal Party gained ground from Labor in 2012, winning a fifth seat. Labor only won three, while four independents won seats. Three of these independents had served on the previous council.

Independent councillor Ivan Petch served as mayor from 2012 to 2013, followed by Liberal councillor Roy Maggio from 2013 to 2014 and then fellow Liberal Bill Pickering from 2014 to 2015.

Former mayor Ivan Petch resigned in late 2014, triggering an early 2015 by-election won by Liberal candidate Jane Stott. This gave the Liberal Party six out of twelve seats on the council.

Despite this shift in the numbers, the 2015 mayoral election saw Labor’s Jerome Laxale win when the result was drawn from a hat. Former Liberal mayor Etmekdjian won the vote of all six Liberal councillors, while the three current and former Labor councillors voted for Laxale, and the three other independents voted for Terry Perram. Laxale won the tiebreaker between himself and Perram, and Perram’s supporters went on to vote for Laxale, resulting in a 6-6 tie. This result was broken by drawing Laxale’s name out of the hat.

Liberal councillor Bill Pickering returned to the mayoralty in September 2016, thanks to former Labor councillor Jeff Salvestro-Martin switching and supporting Pickering over Labor’s Laxale.

The council swung to the left in 2017. Labor won a fourth seat, while the Greens returned to the council with two seats. The Liberal Party was reduced to four seats, along with two independents.

Jerome Laxale has held the mayoralty since 2017. Labor and Greens have generally voted together on leadership elections, while independent Simon Zhou has either voted with them or abstained.

Greens councillor Chris Gordon was elected deputy mayor in 2017, while Zhou took the job in 2018 and 2019.

Labor councillor Peter Kim nominated for deputy mayor in 2020 with the support of the Liberal councillors and Maggio, resulting in a 6-6 tie against Greens councillor Gordon. Kim won the draw of the hat, and was subsequently suspended by the ALP. Kim held the job for the next year. Independent Roy Maggio won the job with the support of Labor and Greens councillors in September 2021 to finish out the council term.

The 2021 election saw the Liberal Party’s best ever result, winning six seats to just five for Labor, along with independent Roy Maggio. The Greens were wiped out, and independents Zhou and Kim were also defeated. A referendum was successful to introduce a directly elected mayoralty from 2024.

Liberal councillor Jordan Lane won the mayoralty, and independent Roy Maggio won the deputy mayoralty. Maggio was succeeded by Liberal councillor Sarkis Yedelian in September 2022.

Labor’s Jerome Laxale resigned from council after winning a seat in federal parliament, and the subsequent by-election was won by a Liberal candidate, giving the party a clear majority on the council.

Lane resigned as mayor in December 2022 to (successfully) contest the state seat of Ryde at the 2023 state election. Yedelian succeeded Lane as mayor, with Shweta Deshpande subsequently elevated to the deputy mayoralty.

Council control
The Liberal Party has had a clear majority since a 2022 by-election. Prior to that time, a Liberal-independent alliance had governed the council.

Candidate summary
Sitting councillors Jordan Lane (Liberal), Katie O’Reilly (Labor), Charles Song (Labor) and Sarkis Yedelian (Liberal) are not running for re-election.

The Labor and Liberal parties are both running for every ward and for mayor. The Greens and independent Roy Maggio are also running for mayor. The Greens are only running for Central Ward, and Maggio is running for re-election in the East Ward.

Unity is running for the West Ward.

Three other independent groups are running:

• Nicole Rizk (Central Ward)
• Karen Alden (West Ward)
• Peter Kim (West Ward)

Assessment
The four-member ward structure in Ryde lends itself towards producing 2-2 deadlocks. The Liberal Party was only able to control the council in 2021 because one ward saw Labor only win one seat alongside a Liberal-leaning independent, but in other contexts (particularly ones with a stronger Greens presence or more Labor-friendly independents) this wouldn’t necessarily favour the Liberals.

The council will have a directly-elected mayor from 2024. This will thus produce a tiebreaker – in a 6-6 tie situation, the party winning the mayoralty will be able to run the council.

2021 results

Vote breakdown by ward
The following two tables show the vote in each ward before and after the recent redistribution.

The Labor primary vote ranged from 30% in the east to 40.4% in the west. The Liberal Party’s primary vote ranged from 33.8% in the west to 37.1% in the centre.

The independent vote was 24-26% in the east and west, and 12.6% in the centre.

Pre-redistribution vote numbers

Post-redistribution vote numbers

Election results at the 2021 City of Ryde election
Toggle between primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party, the Greens and independent candidates Roy Maggio, Simon Zhou and Peter Kim.

Candidates – Mayor

• Cr Trenton Brown (Liberal)
• Cr Bernard Purcell (Labor)
• Cr Roy Maggio (Independent)
• Tina Kordrostami (Greens)

Candidates – Central Ward

• A – Greens
  1. Tina Kordrostami
  2. Cosmin Luca
  3. Nicholas Grinter-Cummins
  4. John Brown
• B – Liberal
  1. Cr Shweta Deshpande
  2. Cr Daniel Han
  3. Armen Arakelian
  4. Madison Lane
• C – Independent
  1. Nicole Rizk
  2. Louis George
  3. Meray Hajjar
  4. Jennifer Rizk
• D – Labor
  1. Lyndal Howison
  2. Milo Kuga
  3. Bailey Linton-Simpkins
  4. Kathleen Powell

Candidates – East Ward

• A – Liberal
  1. Cr Trenton Brown
  2. Cr Sophie Lara-Watson
  3. Keanu Arya
  4. Jeannette Oujani
• B – Labor
  1. Cr Penny Pedersen
  2. Nasrin Azizi
  3. James Jelly
  4. Christopher Rutter
• C – Independent
  1. Cr Roy Maggio
  2. Greg Chippendale
  3. Efi Krimizis
  4. Lina Candy

Candidates – West Ward

• A – Unity
  1. Angela Jia
  2. Bing Zhang
  3. Shao Wu
  4. Jiaxi Li
• B – Liberal
  1. Cr Justin Li
  2. Kathy Tracey
  3. Cameron Last
  4. Deepak Chauhan
• C – Independent
  1. Karen Alden
  2. Michelle Prasad
  3. Philip Brown
  4. Michelle Edwards
• D – Independent
  1. Peter Kim
  2. May Mak
  3. Glenn Pearce
  4. Crystal Tisseverasinghe
• E – Labor
  1. Felix Lo
  2. Bec Cooke
  3. Edwin Ho
  4. Geoffrey Lee

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